s face to the roof, reached up and drew
his finger firmly down along the canvas for a good ten inches--and if
you don't know why, try it yourself some time in a tent with the rain
pouring down upon the land. As if that were not enough he repeated
the operation again and again, each time in a fresh place, until the
rain came through beautifully all over the bed of Weary. Then he lay
down, cuddled the blankets up to his ears, closed his eyes and
composed himself to sleep, at peace with his conscience and the
world--and it did not disturb his self-satisfaction when Weary
presently awoke, moved sleepily away from one drip and directly under
another, shifted again, swore a little in an undertone and at last
was forced to take refuge under his tarpaulin. After that Pink went
blissfully off to dreamland.

At four o'clock it still rained dismally--and the Happy Family,
waking unhappily one after another, remembered that this was the
Fourth that they had worked and waited for so long, "swore a prayer
or two and slept again." At six the sun was shining, and Jack Bates,
first realizing the blessed fact, called the others jubilantly.

Weary sat up and observed darkly that he wished he knew what
son-of-a-gun got the tent to leaking over him, and eyed Pink
suspiciously; but Pink only knuckled his eyes like a sleepy baby and
asked if it rained in the night, and said he had been dead to the
world. Happy Jack came blundering under the ban by asking Weary to
remember that he _told_ him it would rain. As he slept beside Weary,
his guilt was certain and his punishment, Weary promised himself,
would be sure.

Then they went out and faced the clean-washed prairie land, filled
their lungs to the bottom with sweet, wine-like air, and asked one
another why in the dickens the night-hawk wasn't on hand with the
cavvy, so they could get ready to start.

At nine o'clock, had you wandered that way, you would have seen the
Happy Family--a clean-shaven, holiday-garbed, resplendent Happy
Family--roosting disconsolately wherever was a place clean enough to
sit, looking wistfully away to the skyline.

They should, by now, have been at the picnic, and every man of them
realized the fact keenly. They were ready, but they were afoot; the
nighthawk had not put in an appearance with the saddle bunch, and
there was not a horse in camp that they might go in search of him.
With no herd to hold, they had not deemed it necessary to keep up any
horses